Feature
- Do You Hate Your Partner, Too?
- California Teen Avoids Heavy Sentencing by Passing the Buck
- Wanna Buy Your Teenager a Padded Push-Up Bra?
- Vampires in Texas!
- These Guys Are As Bad As Westboro Baptist Church
- Funny Letters Sent to Women's Magazines
- Women's Ski Jumping: Still Not a 'Real' Sport
- Will the World Be Pro-Choice Soon?
- Are We Getting Too Lazy to Even Divorce?
- Forever 21's Maternity Line: Glamorizing Teen Pregnancy?
Angelina Jolie is a hot button topic, no question. There’s the role she might or might not have played in the demise of Brad Pitt’s marriage to Jennifer Aniston. The fact that she chooses to adopt children from other countries when there are plenty of children in need right here in the USA. The blood vial necklace. The, uh, intense public kiss with her brother. The fact that her father is totally bananas. However, Jolie has forged a great path for women in the movie industry, particular in the action/adventure genre, with her $20 million dollar payout for next summer’s action flick Salt … and the victory is especially sweet when you consider that the role was intended for a man (well, if you consider Tom Cruise to be a man).
“It’s definitely unusual that a female has become an action star,” “Salt” producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura says. “But it’s a funny thing. She’s not a female action star; she’s an action star. She’s really the first female to transcend gender. I don’t think it’s occurred before.”
Love Jolie or hate her, di Bonaventura has hit the nail on the head here. With films like Lara Croft, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Jolie is a bona fide action star. That she is a woman seems to be incidental … and how cool is that?
The Philip Noyce-directed “Salt,” in which Jolie plays a CIA spook accused of foreign espionage who must go on the run, looks prepared to push that total upward when it opens next Friday. Industry tracking a week out has it opening north of $30 million, but its only competition that weekend is the kid-friendly “Ramona and Beezus” and the second week of “Inception,” which means interest is likely to spike as it gets closer to opening.
Salt sounds like a pretty interesting flick, actually, and I’m not going to lie, I think Jolie will be much better in the role than Tom Cruise (Tom freaking Cruise?) would have been.
And while Sigourney Weaver (Aliens), Linda Hamilton (T2), and Avatar’s Zoe Saldana and Michelle Rodriguez have over time demonstrated that women can hold their own in action films, Jolie unquestionably takes the cake.
No actress in Hollywood history has been able to chisel out the supremacy Jolie has in a male-dominated genre. Actually, her achievement is bigger than that. Her standard deal, which she received for “Salt” and “Tourist,” is matched by only one or two other actors in the world, with $20 million up front, a hefty share of the profits plus other sizable ancillary benefits. She already was getting $15 million for “Smith” and “Wanted.”
“The fact that she is in the entertainment industry and can approach a male salary is an anomaly,” says Lori Watson, director of women’s and gender studies at the University of San Diego. “Maybe she can command a salary, but she can’t break through the expectations that women are supposed to be beautiful and sexualized and fit a certain mold and behave in a certain way.”
So what is it about Angelina Jolie that has shaped her success?
I think she proved early on with Gia and Girl, Interrupted (for which she won an Oscar) that she can act. She is also relatable; her private tribulations have played out in the public eye, and they are issues that many of us have dealt with—dysfunctional parenting (would you want to be raised by Jon Voight?), self-image struggles, relationships, child-rearing (and having to take heat from Miley Cyrus, of all people on her parenting style) …
She also has a certain air of mystique, most likely picked up from her world travels. That she has lived some real life adventures all over the globe, serving as a Goodwill Ambassador in the process, gives her action movies an air of authenticity. I never get the feeling that Jolie is in a bubble bath with cucumber slices over her eyes the minute the director yells, “Cut!”
What are your thoughts on Angelina Jolie and the success she’s found as an action star? And, while we’re on the subject, why has success with romantic comedies, historically the meat and potatoes of female movie stars, evaded her?
You Might Also Like ...
-
-
16
Great article cheers for the information.
I think I would lose all respect for Angelina Jolie if she was in a romcom. I detest them.
I love that Jolie stars in action movies; she seems to have a seriousness and maturity that a lot of actresses lack. Maybe it’s because she cares about what happens in the third world–no, I don’t mean she holds telethons, she actually goes there and does something.
And as far as the whole “Angelina stole Jenifer Aniston’s man” thing goes, no man can be stolen without his consent. If a man “allows” himself to be seduced away from his SO, he’s not committed to the relationship anyway.
While I consider it immoral to get involved with an involved man (/woman), the only person responsible is the one who made a commitment. It’s silly when women hold the other woman responsible, as though her (former) guy had nothing to do with it.
It’s silly for fans to still be obsessing over this and to be acting as though they have any role in what these celebs decided to do six years ago.
Billy Bob,WTF man?
He has to be great in bed, can’t think of any other reason. Maybe a big dick?
Love love love her.
“Maybe she can command a salary, but she can’t break through the expectations that women are supposed to be beautiful and sexualized and fit a certain mold and behave in a certain way.”
Are you kidding me? You think that men flock to Angelina Jolie movies because she’s a great actor? Because they relate to her?
Jolie is one of the MOST sexualized female actors out there. She is not playing a female in a male role- the roles she plays are specifically tailored to sexualize her and attract male viewers. If Salt was originally written for a man to play the lead role, it was certainly altered to fit a female lead while still maintaining the male audience.
Find me an action movie that she’s been in where she doesn’t have some sort of hyper-sexualized scene- whether she is slowly shaking her hair out as she climbs out of the water in a bikini as Lara Croft, or tumbling about in a sex scene with her character’s husband in Salt, Jolie is cast in these movies largely due to her eye candy status. Men don’t want to relate to her, they want to have sex with her. There has been a multitude of research done into the sexualized nature of the female action hero, and all of it certainly applies to Jolie’s case.
I appreciate Jolie as a gorgeous woman, but not as a feminist role breaker. As is the case with the majority of female actors, I believe she is afraid to appear ugly. For so many women in the acting industry, their largest asset is their ability to appear attractive- because that is what people want to see- attractive women. If Jolie was to take on this barrier, then she would have my respect, but as it stands she’s just a really well paid male fantasy.
find me an action movie were lead men arent sexualized either.
:@TheWicked7: There’s a post on jezebel today via io9 called “How Angelina fought to keep Salt from being ‘Pretty’” which might answer you. I think Jolie basically agrees with your point. We’ll see if/how Salt is different from her previous action movies. And I’d argue that any action movies with female leads have always had a hyper-sexualied component. Even the male lead ones with hyper-sexualized female eye candy.
In addition, I’d say that a large # of women, straight (e.g., me) & gay, want to have sex with her (just read a Top 10 poll on Dorothy Surrenders where she’s featured on several lists). Her audiences are 40% female (I follow track movie stats because I have family in the business).
I appreciate Jolie both as a gorgeous woman (not mutually exclusive with being feminist, btw), a feminist role-breaker in her films (badass girrl power action, drama – Gia/Girl, Interrupted/A Mighty Heart/Changeling), producing progressive films; and a feminist in her work (aside being an actor) as a humanitarian with brains – not just donating millions to international organizations like Doctors Without Borders & founding girls schools, founding U.S. organizations defending children without families; UNHCR goodwill ambassador – 2/3 of refugees are women/children, and writing op/eds in publications like Washington Post/Economist on these issues including sex trafficking, as well as lobbying Congress.
I’d say Angelina Jolie’s creds of 10 years as an advocate for women & children proves not only can she talk the talk but she walks the walk. Just check her page on unhcr.org.
[...] Meester Get Wet Fabiana S. Is a Brazilian Runway Hustla Jennifer Love Shows Her Getaway Sticks Angelina Jolie’s a Woman Making Strides Paul Rudd Looking Ridiculous, Awesome Posted on July 19th, 2010 in links | Permalink [...]
[...] Chicken Legs Jolie and someone who may or may not have been Brad Pitt (we cannot know for sure because he never takes off his damn sunglasses), hit up the big premiere of Salt, the summer blockbuster wherein Angelina Jolie continues to redefine the role of women in action flicks. [...]
[...] Angelina Jolie: Not Just a Pretty Face [...]
[...] Now obviously these chivalric hero quests have been around since the dawn of time, but isn’t it about time that we start updating them? And I don’t mean the way this year’s Robin Hood did, by having Cate Blanchette storm into battle on a horse, only to still need rescuing when she accidentally falls off into the ocean (Lady drivers, amirite?). Or, at the very least, don’t leave it all up to Angelina. [...]
[...] no strings attached. This woman, arguably the “realest” celebrity out there and unquestionably a pathfinder in terms of women in film, is always going to be the whore who stole Brad Pitt away from poor, sweet Jennifer [...]